Over the first 17 trading sessions of March, retail investors net bought S$638 million of Singapore stocks. This lifted cumulative retail net buying in local stocks for 1Q26 to S$675 million as of 24 March.
Over the same period, institutional investors were net sellers of S$46 million, with market makers and active traders effectively bridging the gap between net retail buying and net institutional selling. The recent surge in retail demand follows a strong 2025, when retail investors accumulated S$2.6 billion of net buys in Singapore stocks.
The 15 most net bought stocks by retail investors over the past 17 sessions are tabled below. The 15 stocks averaged a 7.9% decline in total return in March, in contrast to the 15 stocks that booked the most net retail selling averaging 3.2% total returns.
The divergence again highlights a contrarian, value‑seeking bias among Singapore retail investors, with net buying focused on daily laggards over leaders.
$DBS(D05.SI)$ $YZJ Shipbldg SGD(BS6.SI)$ $Genting Sing(G13.SI)$ $CapLand Ascendas REIT(A17U.SI)$ $UIBREIT(UIBU.SI)$ $IFAST(AIY.SI)$ $OCBC Bank(O39.SI)$ $PropNex(OYY.SI)$ $ComfortDelGro(C52.SI)$ $Mapletree Ind Tr(ME8U.SI)$ $CityDev(C09.SI)$ $CSE Global(544.SI)$ $CapLand India T(CY6U.SI)$ $CapitaLandInvest(9CI.SI)$ $CapLand IntCom T(C38U.SI)$
The contrast becomes more pronounced when ranking stocks by net retail flow relative to their respective market capitalisation. Among the 150 most-traded stocks year-to-date, the 30 that recorded the highest net retail buying proportionate to market cap in March averaged an 8.9% decline in total return, while the 30 that saw the highest net retail selling averaged 4.7% total returns.
Across the S-REITs, CapitaLand Ascendas REIT (CLAR) saw the most net retail buying over the past 17 sessions, while declining 7.1%. Also of note the REIT was on trading halt yesterday after updating on acquisitions to advance the Manager’s portfolio rejuvenation strategy, and announcing a placement that is expected to add 5.5% to CLAR's existing share base.
CLAR subsequently announced it had raised S$903.5 million in gross proceeds, comprising ~S$600.0 million from an oversubscribed private placement and ~S$303.5 million from a preferential offering, with the placement attracting strong participation from a quality mix of new and existing unitholders, long‑only funds, real estate specialists, private wealth and multi‑strategy investors.
Proceeds will be used primarily to part‑finance completed and pipeline acquisitions across Singapore, the US, Spain and Japan spanning logistics, business park, and data centre assets, with portions also allocated for potential Singapore industrial and logistics acquisitions, transaction costs, and general corporate purposes.
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